Raised in the trailer parks and rural outskirts of El Cajon, Kraft knows our city as well as anyone. After high school, he went to work on the assembly line in El Cajon’s vibrant manufacturing industry. Holding jobs in manufacturing, retail, and service, he worked his way through community college, ultimately transferring to UC Berkeley and graduating with top honors. After graduation, Kraft worked as a middle and high school teacher until the COVID pandemic led him to realize his calling in public service.

An enduring sense of justice and conviction that progressive change is always won by people’s movements – not doled out the elites – has guided Kraft’s community organizing throughout his life. Ever since the Second Gulf War, Kraft has helped build movements beyond marches and rallies – exploring art, music, and direct action as mechanisms for change. As a community organizer, he has stood with tenants seeking justice and fair rents, with Barrio Logan residents for community self-determination in Chicano Park, and with El Cajon residents time and again for police reform, for the right to share food with our unhoused neighbors, and for immigrant families’ safety in the face of ICE kidnappings.

A proud union member, Alexander Kraft’s advocacy in the workplace has earned him his coworkers’ trust. They have elected him to speak and work on their behalf as Shop Steward, Chapter Treasurer, Bargaining Team, Executive Board member, and delegate to the county Labor Council. His union brothers and sisters know that he will stand up for workers, stand up to powerful bosses and elected officials, and win!

El Cajon’s multi-ethnic working class is under attack by a MAGA-controlled city government more interested in writing checks to billionaire landlords and selling out our residents to ICE than in meeting people’s needs. But Kraft knows that city government can bring rents down, bring wages up, protect our people, and get costs under control. Mainstream Democrats have abandoned East County, but the people of El Cajon want progressive leadership like Alexander Kraft, not business as usual.